Chinese Beliefs
The Chinese believed that the hun, the immaterial soul of man, not the physical soul of man, was involved in dreams. It could separate from the body for nighttime communication with the spirits. It was believed that the dreamer was vulnerable, and the soul could have trouble getting back into the body if the sleeper was disturbed. Alarm clocks were not welcome in many areas of China when they were first available.
The T’ung Shu is a Chinese almanac of life that has a 4000 year history of collected knowledge. It’s section on dreams is called “Chou Kung’s Book of Auspicious and Inauspicious Dreams” dating back to 1020 B.C. Chou Kung was a mathematician who may have also been involved in the compilation of the I Ching. Mr.Chou is a term attributed to dreaming. If a student dozes in class, he will often be aroused with the question, “Have you been visiting Mr. Chou?
The T’ung Shu has seven categories of dreams. Many interpretations about events and symbols are listed in the material. The categories are arranged by association, like “heaven and the weather,” “houses, gardens, forests, etcetera,” “human body,” “animals and birds,” and “clothing and jewelry.” An example of the entries under these categories would be that to dream of an orchard with trees heavy with fruit, “houses, gardens, forests, etcetera,” means that one will have many children and grandchildren. Another example under “human body” is that to dream of one’s teeth falling out means the parents are in danger.
One of the most famous Chinese dreams is that of Chuang-tzu who is associated with the development of Taoism. He could not figure out, upon awakening, whether or not he was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he was a man. It seemed to him that both existences were real, depending on the perspective that one looks from.
The Lie-tseu is a Taoist text defining several classes of dreams. These classes are ordinary dreams (without emotion), terror dreams, thought dreams (about what one was focused on thinking about that day), waking dreams (what one said or did that day), and joy dreams. Explanations and definitions are put in the concept of Yin and Yang energy and the constant balancing act between the two. It was believed that dreams “compensated” for what was missing in ordinary life. (Yin represented darkness or negative, Yang represented light or positive.)
Incubation of dreams was widely practiced in temples and other sacred places. Once the dream was achieved, there would be a divination done to determine if the dream was really sent by a god. Only if the dream was sent by a god would it be analyzed by a dream interpreter. Even political figures, judges, government officials and visiting dignitaries were required to spend their first night in a temple of the city’s god in order to receive guidance and wisdom. Robert L. Van De Castle makes an interesting statement in his book Our Dreaming Mind (1994), “It’s fascinating to speculate what would happen if our government encouraged its officials to spend some nights in a dream temple, seeking and sharing guiding dreams.”